bar_scene_gambler

Not really. When I was talking with Lawlor at Penn State, he said the reason they only ask for your last three semesters' cum GPA is because they only really care about the grades you received in your upper-level philosophy courses, which makes a lot of sense to me. From the perspective of an adcomm, what is going to tell you more about a candidate, that they got a B or C in their intro class, or that they have an express interest in Nietzsche and got an A in their graduate-level Nietzsche class (in my case)? The latter, it seems to me, though I could be wrong. I've just gone into it assuming that Penn State's adcomm has a similar attitude to other departments in terms of grades.

You're competing against me (well, only for Austin really), and I started at a community college where my grades sucked a bit of dick. I'm graduating Summa Cum Laude from my uni this year.

So should I just assume a rejection from U Chicago? And I haven't heard anything from Loyola Chicago either, so should I wonder if I should also assume a rejection from there.

Hey, if they do I'd be cool with that, but only if they send me an email.

Nah. My bet is next week is going to be pretty big. I doubt we'll see a lot of action tomorrow.

A lot of places in PA are closing now. I've got almost 6 inches of snow outside my window right now, and the snow isn't supposed to stop until Friday morning. So if you're applying to somewhere in PA (or Jersey I believe) I'd expect this to delay things a little.

You should just hope that your power goes out then. Mine probably will sometime today, and then I'll get to read Nietzsche by candlelight, which is pretty sweet.

Okay, so I've been using a Kindle Fire for a little while now (my gf got it for me for Christmas), and I'm kind of growing accustomed to it. I'll just go through your list. 1. Haven't done it, but I'm aware of several apps which allow you to do this kind of thing. The nice thing is that the more recent Kindle's have more responsive screens than the first gens, so using a stylus or something to take notes would probably be relatively similar to writing by hand. 2. I love it for my light reading. It has a few little extras that I quite like, such as a predicative function to let you know approximately when you're going to be done with the book. It allows you to bookmark, highlight, and add notes, and has a function which allows you to jump straight to your bookmarked/highlighted pages. It's pretty nice, though I haven't tried to do anything extensive with it yet. 3. I haven't tried this because I have a smaller screen, but if you get the HDX with the 8.9 in. screen, you should be more than capable of typing notes, especially if you've already done it on another kind of tablet or something. 4. I got a case with my kindle which allows me to use the case itself to stand the screen up. It's the origami case or something like that. I quite like it, and it makes reading much more comfortable while laying down. 5. Great 6. Mine didn't come with a stylus, but they aren't that expensive. 7. I have no clue. Sorry dude/ette 8. Apparently Kindle supports polytonic letters, but only sort of. I found this for you: http://ntresources.com/blog/?p=754 9. You can totally do that with the Kindle. Also, there's this great thing called Calibre which allows you to handle a digital "library" and which converts many kinds of digital files into Kindle-ready files. It also allows you to send the files directly to your Kindle from there. It's great if you are downloading books from "Russian libraries". 10. I can't imagine you'd use up a ton of memory unless you're downloading ass-tonnes of scanned books onto the thing. But I suppose you could always just keep the overflow on your external HDD until you need it for the Kindle. File transfers are incredibly easy. 11. Can't help you there. 12. There is some support out there for LaTex files, but I've never had personal experience with them. But like I said, transfer is incredibly easy. It's like attaching an external harddrive to your computer. You can go into the Kindle's harddrive and pull out/put in anything you want/need. It's pretty simple. All in all, the Kindle has been pretty great for me so far. I'd certainly recommend it over, say, and iPad, but if you're going for a less book-oriented tablet, then I'd look into those. I think, despite what Amazon has tried to do with it, the Kindle is still mainly meant for books. But then again, aren't we, for the most part, reading and writing all the time anyways?

By here do you mean the entirety of the philosophical world, excepting some small pockets in the English-speaking world and Europe, or do you mean The Grad Cafe?

Oh, so Kierkegaard gets a vote for beauty but Nietzsche was an absolute waste of time? I see how it is.

What?! Why would a feminist not vote for Nietzsche?! He absolutely adored women!

FUCK YOU AND YOUR REASONABLE MIDDLE GROUNDS!!! I'M GOING TO GO BECOME AN UBERMENSCH SO I CAN RAPE AND PILLAGE! HAVE FUN WITH YOUR LOGIC EDIT: In all seriousness though, the fact that you didn't even read Nietzsche or Heidegger (and I assume others from the list) during your undergraduate career is a crying shame. I read Wittgenstein and Mill and Moore and others from that list, and I'm glad I did, even though I don't particularly like Moore. It does bother me a bit that there are places where a broad education at the undergraduate level isn't emphasized.

Nietzsche got beat out by Frege and Mill??? Mill?! And somehow, G.E. Moore managed to be considered more important than Martin Heidegger. I'm just going to go cry over the fate of philosophy now.

All the Hume hate going around. What gives?

That sounds delightfully disgusting, if such a description could ever be appropriate. As for me, I have a weakness for ouzo. Don't know why, but I can't drink enough of the stuff. That, whisky, or vodka. Oh! and Baijiu (Chinese rice liquor). Basically anything that'll knock me on my ass in three seconds flat.

Woah woah woah there! Thems fighting words pal. You'd best not be talkin smack 'bout my homie. As for myself, I find Kant's moral philosophy particularly distasteful. If we're talking overall my least favorite philosopher, I'd probably have to say J.L. Austin. Can't stand the fucking guy. As for most overrated, I'd probably say Wittgenstein, even though I personally like some of his work.

Oh. I didn't understand you. My bad. And I didn't realize they don't waitlist. That blows. EDIT: I guess I did know that looking back at their website. I guess I just chose to forget.

Man! Now I feel out of the loop.

I don't think that's a safe assumption yet. We haven't even begun to hear about potential waitlisted applicants, and we haven't seen the usual "rejected but offered a place in the money-pit MAPH" posts yet.

Well...my sister's friend brought me a whole bottle of ouzo just for funsies. Looks like I'm drinking Greek liquor tonight.

So is it safe to assume rejection to Arizona if you haven't received an email yet?

Hey! That's my line!

It happened to you too?! God that shit is annoying. Maybe they sent it to all of us.

The feeling is mutual. The silence is absolutely deafening.

Ideally I'd like to study with either Pippin or Conant (I've recently discovered Conant's work on Nietzsche and love it). I'm actually pretty committed to interdisciplinary work though, so the Committee is a good fit for my interests in a general sense. EDIT: Basically, I'd give my left nut to do anything at U Chicago